Other News

Murphy & McGonigle's James Goldfarb is moderating a panel at the ABA 2nd Annual Western Regional Class Action CLE Program, "Expert Testimony at Class Certification a Year after Halliburton", in San Francisco, California.

Murphy & McGonigle, P.C., a leading provider of legal services to the financial services industry, is marking its 5th anniversary in 2015. Founded in 2010, the firm has remained true to an innovative law firm model focused on serving some of the best known banks, broker-dealers, investment advisers, hedge funds, securities markets and exchanges in the United States and internationally.

Last month’s indictment by US law enforcement officials of former Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) officials and associated marketing executives continues to dominate the headlines. The US government alleges that the defendants violated US criminal statutes prohibiting bribery, racketeering (RICO), money laundering, and wire fraud through a long-running pattern of making, accepting, or facilitating corrupt payments connected to selecting host countries for FIFA-sponsored tournaments, and the sale of media and marketing rights for those events.1 Other international sports organizations – and the media and corporate sponsors who court them – should be concerned about where the authorities will look next.

Enforcement Defense Update: The Department of Justice (DoJ) today announced fines totaling $5.6 billion against five of the world’s largest banks related to the banks’ alleged manipulation of the foreign exchange markets (“forex”). The settlements are notable for a number of reasons; in particular, the settlements highlight the strong position the DoJ appears to be taking with respect to enforcement declinations and recidivism.

There is a sense in the United States that compliance professionals are moving into the crosshairs of government enforcement actions. For years, the government has sought to bring actions not only against those who committed the primary violations, but also against the so-called “gatekeepers;” the lawyers, the accountants, and now, the compliance professionals who the government believes facilitated the illegal misconduct. When misconduct is uncovered in a company, US enforcement officials will always ask, “Was the compliance system adequate?” Senior enforcement officials will ask their investigators whether the company took appropriate steps to detect and prevent misconduct in determining whether an action against the company is appropriate. The enforcement investigator will therefore take steps to evaluate the effectiveness of the compliance system. If the government finds the compliance system was inadequate, there appears to be a growing likelihood that US enforcement agencies will name an individual as responsible for that failure. As James Loonam, Deputy Chief of the Business & Securities Fraud Section in the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said recently at a conference, when the government gets a resolution against a company only, and not an individual, he considers that a failure.

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